Philipp Walsleben: "Maybe I'll reconsider quitting pro cycling after this"

August 8 ^th 2021 - 19:17 [GMT + 2]

“Of course I’m very satisfied. It was really hard. We made it a hard race today. When I’m in such a group, from the beginning I immediately start thinking of the stage victory. But in the end it was a lot of suffering. I was a bit surprised that I was the strongest of the front group but it made me happy. It was hard to deal with Niki Terpstra because he’s very strong. He’s very heavy so normally I’m better than him uphill but Terpstra is still Terpstra so you never know. He didn’t want to pull in the last kilometres. It made it even harder for me. But I still had the impression that I was stronger than him up the hill so I had to keep the pace high, then I made a perfect sprint. It could be a very special victory because my plan was to quit professional cycling at the end of this year. I don’t know if I’ll reconsider it after this win… Obviously, I’m still pretty good.”